Another excerpt

//from book 2//
Rahda has to return to the old city to have her tablet replaced; and she meets a very sexy technician. In the scene before this one they can't keep their hands off of each other, so this excerpt is "after" the good part.
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Dev watches me from his small bed as I dress. His eyes are heavy on me and for some reason it makes me feel guilty. A fuck and then run. It isn’t fair of me and I know it. But a person in my position does what she has to do. Even if that means ten minutes of mindless, extremely hot sex with a man with a huge—.

“I’ll get your tablet ready,” Dev says and climbs out of the bed in one swift movement. The smell of sex permeates the room. “When do you need to be back at the Palace Skyscraper?”

I tilt my head and my fingers stumble as I fasten the last button on my shirt.
“I never said I was heading to the Palace.”

He laughs. “I’m not dumb, you know.”

His back glistens with a small sheen of sweat. When he turns in his chair he has a tablet extended in his hands. The communicator tablet is small, black, and its skin thicker than my previous one. Once I touch it, a numerical keypad materializes on the screen.

“Choose a password and make it good. It’s programmed to your personal algorithm, too. If someone else touches it, it will stay blank.”

I nod, intrigued. “A two-way authenticator, then?”

Dev grins with pride. I have the feeling that he developed the technology.

“Pretty good, right? Every one has their own mathematical formula based on body temperature, finger prints, stress level and a couple of other data points, and it makes it extremely reliable as a token authentication for devices, doors, whatever. Once you enter your password, bam, your identity is verified by a virtual handshake from the host server and the information on your communicator tablet is encrypted.”

I type in twelve digits for a password. Then I do it again for verification. The screen comes to life, but the colors are muted and dim and I have to squint to read the small font. I see several message icons from the Grandfather materialize in the center. Some of the worry I had about not seeing his messages evaporates. I look at Dev’s door expectantly.

“What else should I know?”

He looks at his door and then back at me. An expression clouds his face. I notice it, but his confused look doesn’t make sense.

“You must maintain contact with it in order to make it stay active,” he says quickly, his voice lower. “The nanosecond you stop touching it, it goes inactive and you’ll need to log-in again. Plus, during the token authentication stage—when you touch it—if it determines your stress level is too high or too low, it will not authenticate.”

I make a face at him. “So if I’m about to die and I need to get a message to the Grandfather, I’m shit out of luck. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Stop being so morbid, jeez,” Dev smiles. “It can tell the difference, okay? It’s mostly a deterrent should someone force you to activate the communicator tablet. So, where’s your broken tablet at? I can use it for something else once I fix it.”

I groan at the stupid move at not bringing it with me. Normally I’m smarter than this.

“Not here,” I say to keep from saying where it really is. Devdan Osta’s one intelligent person. I wonder what he knows about me or if he’s trying to extract information. Sex is usually a good way to open someone up. It wouldn’t be the first time a personal pleasure servant was used for more than pleasure. “I’ll bring it next time I’m here.” I move to his door. “So, I guess I’ll see you later.”

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave?” There’s an undercurrent of urgency in his voice. Suddenly I feel like there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

“And what would I stay for? I have a job to do.”

Dev cocks an eyebrow and I see that his sex is erect again. He’s back to being a innocent charming personality again. Something that won’t fool me again. I smile at the genius of it all.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks with a sexy smile.

Then it dawns on me. “You wanted to keep me here. Why? Do you have sex with everyone?” The last part doesn’t anger me like it might most people. The man can have sex with whomever he wants. I really don’t care.

His smile vanishes. “It’s not what you think. I was only trying to help you.”

“That makes absolutely zero sense. How does detaining me help me?”

“‘Detaining’ makes it sound so boring, doesn’t it? And what we did was anything but boring, Rahda, but here’s what changed my mind about letting you walk away,” Dev turns around and deftly hits a few keys on his terminal. A green text message pops up. “Five minutes after you knocked on my door, this message alert came up on my screen. It was broadcast to all the terminals and to the guards, too.”

===
Rahda Plesti, female, human. Five feet seven inches. Medium build. Brown hair. Green eyes. No visible markings. Reward offered. Wanted for questioning. DNI. Take into custody immediately. Alert security with code 0235P if found, seen, or detained. End of message.
===

I read the message five times and I still do not believe it.
DNI. Do not injure. Well at least they didn’t want to kill me.

Why would the Grandfather want me detained when I was just with him? Part of me hopes that he isn’t the sender, or the person that authorized it being sent out. But the other part of me—the part that recognizes that he never sent me that physical note, he wasn’t concerned that I hadn’t received his other messages, nor did he seem remotely interested in seeing me today—realizes that it must be true.

“You are a bastard. Are they on their way, then?” I ask Dev, but I never take my eyes off the message. The timing doesn’t work. That message came twenty minutes ago. They would have been here by now.

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of, but I’m not such a cruel lowlife that I’d turn you in. You must be doing something right if your people are after you,” Dev says with a grin. I focus on how he said your people, as if the old city isn’t his origins. “Besides,” he points to another part of the screen, “I sent them this after I saw the message.”

===
Code 0235P, subject spotted near Guard Post 17, entering blue spike forest two minutes ago. End of message.
===
Messenger, authenticate yourself. Over.
===
Code 5T04J. Over.
===
Nothing further required. End of transmission.
===

“Someone else sent a message, too, and it was erroneous. I was able to see it before it was deleted, but the sender reported that you were last seen on Cascades trail heading south toward the mouth of Hades Rocks. I don’t know what’s going on, well, I have an idea of what’s going on, but you need to know you have friends here, Rahda.”

I nod and questions invade. My first question is why would the Grandfather want me detained? For what purpose? He already knows I’ll come running the instant he calls for me. Unless he thinks I know something that I shouldn’t know, which obviously I don’t. My second question is why is Dev helping me? What does he want? I’m not important. But my job is.

“Why are you helping me?”

His hand is on my shoulder, a kind gesture, and his eyes implore mine to understand him.

“Why would I not help you? We want the same thing.”

He has no idea of what I want. No one does because even I don’t know what I want from one minute to the next.

“And what is that?” my voice is a whisper.

Dev doesn’t answer me, not right away. Instead he throws on clothes and quietly opens his door, checking the hallway both ways.

“I’ll tell you when we get to where we’re going,” he says after he shuts the door.

Even after everything that’s happened, it now occurs to me that I didn’t think about how I’d get back to the Palace Skyscraper without being seen. But there’s no way in hell that Dev is coming with me. He seems to be able to read my mind.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going with you. My absence would be noticed,” he grins at me over his shoulder as he puts on boots. I can think of one part of his body that would be severely missed. “But there’s another way out of the old city.” Dev shuts down his terminals, grabs something from under the desk, and motions for me to follow him.

I don’t question. I don’t see how I have much of a choice. I tuck the tablet into the back of my trousers, against my skin, and follow him out into the hallway.